By Enabling the Investigations of Trump, Republicans Put Themselves in 2018 Peril

Jun 16, 2017

RUSH: One other thing that I want to add to this and then we’ll move on to other events in the news, but I’ve been thinking about this. In reacting to some of the complaints that I hear — and I hear a lot. I mentioned this in the first hour. Stop and think of this. As I’m sure many of you have. We now have an independent counsel that appears already out of control. We have I don’t know how many investigations of the president going on in Congress, in the House and the Senate. And it’s all happening in places, institutions that Republicans control.

The Republicans control the House. The Republicans control the Senate. The Republicans control the executive branch. And yet all of this is happening with and inside of Republican control. And don’t think for a minute that voters out there in flyover country don’t know this too. The congressional Republicans are allowing this to happen. Trump appointees in the Department of Justice are allowing this to happen.

The Democrats caterwaul and whine and moan and want a special counsel, and the Republicans at the DOJ give them one. It seems like we have an independent counsel or something close to it every time there is a Republican president, whether the Republicans control the House or not. Why would the Republicans allow this? Why would the Republicans basically stand aside and cede the control of the House and Senate to Democrats in order to run this operation which is designed to destroy and break Donald Trump? I think these answers are clear and self-evident. And we don’t need to rehash every one of them here.

The Democrats, obviously all of this is about 2018. The Democrats seriously believe they’ve already won the House back in 2018. That’s already happened. All we have to do is wait for Election Day. They thought the same thing about Hillary and the White House. They are convinced, folks, that they have succeeded in destroying Trump. Whether he’s ever indicted or impeached or alleged to have commit crimes is irrelevant. They think that in the court of public opinion they have already succeeded.

They’re gonna continue all the way through Election Day. This is not going to abate. Do not expect the independent counsel to have any charges before 2018. Do not expect that to happen. Once we actually get to 2018, which marks the official beginning of the election year, then everything changes, slows down in Washington and focuses on everybody’s reelection efforts. The Democrats will continue to go after Trump, but they don’t want to end this too soon. But they think they’ve already succeeded.

Remember, they are, in my estimation, Wile E. Coyote, and Trump is the Road Runner. The Republicans helping this along, that is another thing. We can debate reasons and there are many. “Well, you know, the Republicans are part of the establishment and Trump’s the outsider and they don’t like Trump being there any more than Democrats.”

Or, “Well, the Republicans never really thought that they were gonna win the White House, and they never thought they were gonna win the Senate, and therefore they never game-planned to actually have to move an agenda, and they’d really rather not. The Democrats are much more at home in power. The Republicans are much more at home out of power and providing meager resistance. But they’re just not ready for this, and they just don’t like it. They don’t like the leadership positions and the pressure and they don’t like having to come up with an agenda, and so they’re not.”

But they are angering their base. And this election’s gonna come down to what do voters think is the worst thing that could happen in Washington: Keeping Republicans where they are or kicking them out and putting Democrats there. And I’m here to tell you that I do not believe a majority of people are going to think the better outcome would be for Democrats to be reempowered. But the Democrats already think that’s done, that’s finished, they’ve already won the day. The media thinks it’s already done. The media thinks the election of 2018 is now in hand.

The real question is this, which I have raised on previous occasions. If the Republicans are basically gonna stand down as victors, for whatever reason, I don’t care what the reason — they don’t like Trump, they don’t want to lead, they never thought they were gonna have, I don’t care what the reason, if they’re gonna stand down after they win, then why elect ’em? What’s the purpose of having Republicans in power if they’re not going to use it? Oh, no, I know, there have been some bright moments. Neil Gorsuch and the moving of Obamacare, we’ll see how that ends up, the Obamacare repeal and replace law.

I had a caller yesterday who said something that is I think highly relevant to this. The caller said the Trump win was years in the making. What was he talking about? Was he talking about just the two-year campaign of Trump? No. I think he was talking about a lot more. I think he was actually talking about dating back to 2010 and the emergence of the Tea Party in opposition to Obama. And I think he was actually referring to the fact that it took years for an opposition movement to percolate out there, ’cause it didn’t exist in the Republican Party.

Remember, the Republican Party didn’t want to do much to stop Obama. They didn’t do things with teeth, which was very frustrating. They had campaigned on promising to stop Obamacare, all these things, and we elected ’em on those premises, and then they get there and don’t do it. But the Republican voters gave Republicans victories big time in the midterms of 2010 and 2014, and even in the 2012 presidential race, Republicans did okay, outside of the presidential race. And Democrats have been losing elections left and right ever since 2010. Don’t need to rehash that, but it is true.

I think it was a long process here that took place, and that’s the Tea Party. The Tea Party was real and it was genuine, and to this day it scares the heck out of the Democrat Party, because there wasn’t a single leader to go after to destroy it. There wasn’t a single leader responsible for it. It was genuine, real grassroots, and it is still there. And it elected Donald Trump. And it expanded to include a lot of members who were not original Tea Partiers when it commenced in 2010.

And I think the Tea Party ideas for all intents and purposes live on in the electorate. I think the vast majority of people who vote — well, a big majority of people who vote still embody Tea Party political values and in no way, shape, manner, or form are going to reelect Democrats, no matter how mad they get at Republicans. I could be wrong about that. But the Republicans run the risk of paying a huge price here, too, because it’s inescapable that all of this stuff that’s designed to destroy Trump is occurring under Republican leadership. It’s occurring while Republicans have power.

You think the Democrats would allow something like this? Do you think the Democrats would allow minorities in the House and Senate to demand a special prosecutor of Obama for Fast and Furious? You think they would allow that? Heck no. Why did we? Why did Rosenstein, why did these DOJ people so readily agree with Democrat demands for an independent counsel? Why?

Well, again, the answers here are not too many to choose from. Right there at the top of the list is the old standby, “We’re so afraid of Democrats and the media that we’ll do anything to calm them down. We’ll do anything to show them that we’re okay. We’ll do anything to show them that we’re fair. We’ll do anything to show them we’re not Fox News,” whatever it is. But it never works. Hands across the aisle never works, yet it continues to happen. There’s gonna be a breaking point on that someday down the road.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is Bill in San Diego. You’re next up. It’s great to have you with us, sir. How you doing?

CALLER: Hey, Rush. A real honor to talk to the second most powerful man in the country.

RUSH: Well, thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate that, sir.

CALLER: Yeah. This has been bugging me for so long. Trump is using his tweets, and I agree it’s a very good, effective tool, but I got a better one. He needs to take a page from Machiavelli, The Prince, and quietly go behind the scenes and let all the players know that, “Listen, unless you get off the scene and shut the F up, I’m gonna turn the Clinton Foundation inside out.” All these guys, all these guys are connected, Mueller, his team, his attorney, everybody. And they can make this thing go away in no time if they did that. What’s your thoughts on that?

RUSH: Okay, again, I was unable to hear some of what — are you saying there needs to — stop tweeting and go behind the scenes and start threatening these people to shape up or gonna ship ’em out?

CALLER: What I’m saying is he needs to — yes, continue the tweets, but also use his power. He’s in charge of the Justice Department, make it known that they’ll go after the Clinton Foundation and all the players unless they get off the scene and shut the F up.

RUSH: Let me ask you a question. Do you think if Trump had actually, upon being inaugurated, opened the Hillary Clinton investigation, do you think he’d be in a different position today than he is if he would have done that?

CALLER: Yes, because he would have put down a marker and said, “Hey, I’m not afraid to go after you guys.”

RUSH: And he would have put them on defense.

CALLER: Absolutely. Instead of him having to react, he would be the one directing the traffic.

RUSH: Yeah. So why didn’t he? In your estimation.

CALLER: You know, I think he’s a nice enough guy. He thought he could just win people over with his agenda and his personality.

RUSH: I do too.

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: I think that’s exactly — well, no.

CALLER: Okay.

RUSH: Although you have a point there. I mean, I do think Trump has this idea that he can convert anybody with just his existence.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: But no, no. I think he got caught up in the same trap that we always get caught up in. Okay, he wins, it’s a shocker. Everybody’s bamboozled. Nobody knows what hit ’em. They’re immediately launch into diatribes of hate and rage. Hillary Clinton is said to be nearly unbalanced. She’s been spotted wandering in the woods outside the home in Chappaqua, not knowing where she’s going. Trump is magnanimous in victory because this is what manners tell you to do when you win anything.

What is considered good sportsmanship, for example? Well, not today, ’cause there isn’t any. But in the old days what was considered good sportsmanship? Being a good loser and being a good winner. And when you were a good winner, you didn’t mock the loser, and you didn’t trample further on them. You extended the hand, you shook their hand, and you complimented them on a good contest. And you don’t run up the score. You are very, very magnanimous.

Now, in Washington, that’s how Republicans operate anyway, under the belief that behaving that way will tame to some degree the media, and will tame the Democrats. That if you don’t gloat about it and if you don’t laud it over them, they will be less inclined to react negatively and dangerously. And I think this is what Trump was doing. I think Trump was simply trying to be a nice guy and by announcing there wasn’t gonna be any investigation, it was a concession, if you will, “Look, it’s already bad enough for them that they lost. I don’t want pile on.”

And I think he was trying to score points. He was trying to score points with the left and the media, the Clintons, and he was trying to also establish that he was, for everybody else, a good guy. And it never works in politics. I don’t know about the real world. I’ll tell you, I find as our culture evolves so many things that were considered good manners 15 or 20 years ago are now laughed at and mocked at and thought to be stupid. Like when on inauguration day, in conjunction with day, remember when Melania gave a gift to Michelle (My Belle), the Tiffany box, and Michelle acted like, “What the hell is this?”

She took it, and she held it, she looked around. She thought it was the oddest thing to be given a gift by somebody arriving at the house. It was nothing more than good manners. It was right out of Emily Post. It was great etiquette, and Michelle Obama — And I find in American sports, in our culture generally, things that used to be acknowledged or even applauded as examples of good manners and decency, are just laughed at and mocked and not understood by people.

And I think it’s indicative of the way cultures change, the way we’ve been raising or not raising kids, sort of the way they’ve been educating them. Trump should have proceeded with what he said he was gonna do during the campaign. He needed to assert his authority. Of course, look, we can play the what-if game. What if he hadn’t fired Comey, would there be an independent counsel? But I do think things would have been different. Because you can’t gain anything with Democrats by being nice to ’em. You only weaken yourself to them.